"Sometime in your life you will go on a journey.
It will be the longest journey you have ever taken.
It is the journey to find yourself."
- Katherine Shay
Fly Away (Jim Brickman)
Did you know that in dream lore and mythology the butterfly is the symbol of the emergent soul? The butterfly also represents flight, freedom, and creative thinking. The butterfly is also symbolic of resurrection and eternal life.
The symbolism of the butterfly causes me to pause and think about it's life cycle. First, it is the catapillar, lazily climbing along and chewing away on the milkweed leaves seemingly unaware of why it is doing so, only that it is it's lifestyle. Gradually, after feeling somewhat satisfied, the catapillar attaches itself to a secure limb and begins to make it's cocoon. This takes some time but then, when the cocoon is complete, it must wait and develop. It waits...and waits... and waits. (Have you ever wondered what it is doing inside of the cocoon? My theory is that it is doing the "internal work" that it needs to do to develop into a beautiful butterfly.) Finally, after what seems like much too long, it begins to break open it's cocoon and emerge. This also takes time, and occasionally the butterfly had to rest and recouperate before it can continue on. Eventually it fully emerges. Even then it must wait a while longer, until it's wings are dry. Finally, after all of that internal and external work, it spreads its beautiful, colorful wings and flys away. It is off to unknown adventures and unexplored territory, leaving behind only the shell of the cocoon from which it emerged.
In ways I can relate this cycle to my own life. I was just humming along in my life (eating the milkweed). I was relatively satisfied with my life and feeling pretty content. Then, the challenges came, and I had to "attach myself to the secure limb" of my faith and my family and all that was familiar and "safe" to me. I began to "make my cocoon" as I insulated myself and began to do some serious soul searching and self-examination, all the while holding fiercely onto what I knew to be solid and true.
Next came the cocooning stage. Days turned into weeks, turned into months, turned into years of self-evaluation, life assessment, cross examination, goal setting and self-discovery. I journaled. I wrote my life story. I took classes I counseled and I prayed. I read and researched. I cried and I screamed. Sometimes it has been hard and frightening and I have felt like I didn't know whether I would make it, whether I would ever survive the insular world in which I existed.
I am only now beginning to feel like I am starting to emerge from that cocoon, finally starting to discover what it means and feels like to be a "butterfly". There are definately moments that I have had to stop and rest along the way. Somedays it feels like "two steps forward and one step back". But the important thing is that I am getting there, one day at a time. I am making the effort to break free of my cocoon and moving toward eventually emerging as a beautiful butterfly with wonderfully georgeous and colorful "wings" that were created during that insular, cocoon stage. "Wings" that will let me fly, and take me to adventures and places of which I have only dreamed!
After learning about this symbolism I seem to have seen a butterfly at very opportune moments in my journey, moments when I especially needed encouragement, support and love. I have wondered if it isn't God's, and my mother's, way of saying "keep going, keep trying, I know where you have been, I know what you are going through, and I know what you can become - fly!!!!
- - - - -
"Don't worry about searching for the kind of person you want to be.
You will discover that as you pursue that journey you will not only find yourself,
but chances are you will be pleasantly surprised and proud of the person you find along the way."
- Joseph B. Wirthlin
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